We’ve come to realize one thing: youths are ready to rally up in a positive way for their future, but when faced with a universal challenge such as climate change, from where are they supposed to start?

Every day, young people from all around the world express their concerns about employment, education and the environment on social media. The willingness to act is palpable, but we need a helping hand to become real actors of change in order to shape the society we want to live in.

ENGAGE to bring the global CliMates community together with new partners, strengthening worldwide connections between students, professionals and researchers.

With these three objectives in mind, we, CliMates, are giving the opportunity to 40 young people from all 5 continents to share their ideas and solutions for a 5-day event, and most importantly to come up with concrete projects to be implemented back into their communities.

New York City was our obvious choice for this 2nd International Summit: over the past decades, New York City has distinguished itself as a leader in the field of sustainable development. In 2013, the city was heavily impacted by the disastrous consequences of Superstorm Sandy.

Since then, New York City and its inhabitants have consciously decided to transform this threat into an opportunity to make their city a laboratory of numerous cutting-edge economic, social, cultural and public policies against climate change. Symbolically, we have chosen New York City as the place for our International Summit in order to highlight these local sustainable initiatives.

For 5 days, our participants will facilitate and participate in thematic sessions with climate experts as well collaborative training sessions. They will also have the opportunity to attend field visits and meet local stakeholders involved in fighting climate change.

Here are some concrete examples:

Thematic sessions:

Action-Driven Entrepreneurs for Social Change

Managing Climate Stressors on Health

Capacity-building and knowledge-sharing workshops :

Become a social media expert in three steps

Achieve a successful fundraising campaign

Field visits:

Visit of the Rockaway Beach 2 years after Hurricane Sandy, and discussions with local populations and experts.

What are the funds for?

By making a donation, you’re contributing to a youth empowerment and environmental project.

You are giving the opportunity to 40 participants from all around the world to attend an international summit to learn the knowledge and skills that will enable them to become real climate experts and actors of change.

Our objective : 6500€

The raised funds will be used to cover 50% of the following expenses:

Accommodation: participants will be accommodated in a hostel located near Columbia University’s campus,

Catering: Breakfast and dinner will be provided to the participants throughout the 5 days of the event,

Logistics: Name tags, schedules, other office supplies,

Local transportation: although most workshops will take place on Columbia University’s main campus, other events will take place in other parts of New York City (Downtown Manhattan, Brooklyn, Rockaway Beach) and participants will travel via subway,

8% for the Ulule commission​.

If we were to exceed our target (which we strongly hope for!), we would allocate the funds to the following:

8,500 Euros – Rental or Purchase of Video and Audio Equipment enabling us to livestream the event on the Internet and sharing to the members of our network who couldn’t make it to New York and to YOU, our kind supporters!

About the project owner

CLIMATES

CliMates is a non-for-profit think-and-do-tank and a laboratory for ideas and actions carrying out research, training and action projects to find innovative solutions to climate change. We are a youth network gathering 200 youth from over 40 countries working in a wide range of disciplines.

In only three years, CliMates has become a key actor in the different politic forums on international climate policy, and notably at the United Nations Climate Conferences to which CliMates is officially recognized as an observer.

Every year since 2012, CliMates gives around 40 young people the opportunity to meet in person in regional or international events to share knowledge, skills and experiences in the field of climate studies.

The motivation, enthusiasm and story of each and every single participant of the Summit in Paris in 2012 and Bogota in 2013 created a wonderful collaborative environment to work together, share skills and experiences and talk about what we as youth can do today and tomorrow.

– Celine Steer, 25, USA

The CliMates Regional Workshop changed the size of the world for me, making it so much bigger and so much smaller at the same time, and convinced me of the fact that this IS our world, and we CAN change it.

– Laura Florez, 24, Colombia

CliMates Summits are the best places to boost your knowledge on climate change & professional networks! It made me change my positions on the topic a lot … and I got to meet extraordinary people with the same goal: make everything possible for our futur to be liveable.

About this blog

Welcome to ECO Singapore’s COOL IT site, where our youth delegation will be sharing our experiences pre, during and post COP21. We will be representing Singapore at these crucial international negotiations in Paris, France between 30 November and 11 December 2015. Do click on the links above to learn more about climate change and our team.

With the urgency to tackle climate change being ever more imperative, we hope to address pertinent issues that affect Singapore, the region and the world at large as we participate at COP21 and come up with our own initiatives. We hope to use this blog as an avenue to a call to action, inspiring others to become agents of change in their own communities and contribute in their own ways. Do use this blog as a platform to voice your say. Stay tuned for content every day!